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The Dawn of Starcraft: e-Sports come to the world stage

Ars's own Jeremy Reimer is addicted to StarCraft—not so much playing, but …

The GSL goes live

The first ever GSL championship featured some impressive games from foreign players like Greg "Idra" Fields and Dario "TLO" Walsh, but was ultimately won by the Korean Kim Won Gi. He had once been a promising young StarCraft 1 player, but an illness in the family forced him to put his career on hold to help his mother with her fruit stand. When he started playing StarCraft 2 he took the nickname "FruitDealer." He played Zerg, at a time when Zerg was considered underpowered and Terrans had an arsenal of tools that could wipe Zergs off the map in the early game. When he took out Lee Jung Hoon in the finals and won the $90,000 prize, it was the culmination of a long-delayed dream.

Art created by the StarCraft 2 team to celebrate FruitDealer's victory. Image copyright Blizzard Entertainment.

Meanwhile, the top players in StarCraft 1, like Flash (Lee Young Ho), Jaedong (Lee Jae Dong) and Stork (Song Byung Goo) continue to play the game they have been mastering for years, and (at least in public) show no indication of switching to StarCraft 2 any time soon. However, some former legends of the game who had fallen from glory decided they would leave KeSPA and try their luck in the new frontier of StarCraft 2. The biggest of these names were Nada (Lee Yoon Yeol), JulyZerg (Park Sung Joon) and the greatest StarCraft gamer of all time, Boxer (Lim Yo Hwan)

The Emperor arrives

Boxer was the first true superstar of e-Sports in Korea, and he essentially created the scene as it exists today. He was nicknamed the "Emperor of Terran" and was the first "bonjwa"—a term for a player that dominates over all others for an extended period of time—when he won two OSL championships in a row, the league created the "Golden Mouse" trophy in anticipation of his third win. He organized the first formal StarCraft 1 professional gaming team and found corporate sponsors, thus paving the way for a self-sustaining community of gamers who could dedicate their lives to practicing. He even invented the concept of refining strategies with a "practice partner"—someone to whom you would explain exactly what you intended to do in a game, and then continue to play over and over until you could beat them despite their foreknowledge. He authored a best-selling autobiography and his fan club grew to over a million members. He was (and is) personable and charming, the perfect face for e-Sports. When he announced he was switching to StarCraft 2, it was a big deal.

Boxer had gone through the usual path of a successful player in StarCraft 1: a rise from amateur status, a shining time of glory, then a slow fade as younger and hungrier players took over the top spots. He, like all Korean males, had to spend two years in military service before he turned 30. Instead of retiring from the game as expected, he formed a team of former players serving in the Air Force, called Ace. When he returned from service, everyone thought he would become a coach or a commentator, the usual path for players who were past their prime. However, what he wanted more than anything else in the world was to keep playing.

The Emperor arrives. Image courtesy Fomos.

When he appeared at the tryouts for the second GSL StarCraft 2 Open tournament, all eyes were on him. He breezed through the qualifiers and began his journey to the championship. In his way, however, was Nada, winner of six individual titles and statistically the best player of all time. Nada had also switched to StarCraft 2, and when two legends met in the Round of 8, it briefly crashed the Internet in Korea as millions of fans tuned in to see this epic matchup.

Boxer won, and his tears of joy were genuine. He had not been in a televised match for years, and had never defeated Nada in a major event. For him, winning this match was almost as good as winning a championship. However, he lost in the semifinals to NesTea (Lim Jae Duk), a former StarCraft 1 player who previously had very little individual success in his career and had already transitioned into coaching. After the final game, the GOM TV translator John (Jun Kyu "Junkka" Park) gave an impassioned speech that touched a nerve with thousands of people:

First of all, I want to say that I have great respect for NesTea, not just because he won the tournament, but because this guy had the courage to do what he wanted to do, and prove he was right. I'm saying this because too many people, even in Korea, consider playing games a waste of time. I myself was unemployed for two years—about a half, a year and a half—before I joined GOM. All I did was play games at home, and my friends would say that I'm wasting my life. Well, who's laughing now? I ask them: "Can you honestly say, do you like your job?" And I ask them: "Do you have a fan who draws a fan art just for you?" That shuts them up.

So every time you feel ashamed of being a nerd because your friends, teachers, neighbors, or even parents think gaming's a waste of time, you remember: there's no such thing as wasting life as long as you have the courage to do what you like and be passionate about it. You remember: if NesTea listened to all of those criticisms, he wouldn't be standing there with a trophy. And you remember that even if you feel nobody around you supports you, I, Jay, Artosis, Tasteless, and everyone at GOM will support you. Why? Because we believe in e-Sports.

John the Translator's fan art. Image courtesy Kim Dingwall.

John's speech was particularly meaningful for me. Inevitably, whenever I talk about my passion for watching professional StarCraft, there is a small but vocal group of naysayers, nattering nabobs of negativity, who look down upon watching video games as a waste of time, and scoff at the very mention of "e-Sports," as if comparing video games to "real" sports is ludicrous and laughable.

Here's the thing: it doesn't matter what they think.

I could argue that any human activity that involves competition and has win-loss records, teams, sponsors, dedicated practice time, salaries and cash prizes qualifies as a sport. I could point out that it is a myth that competitive StarCraft players aren't engaged in physical activity—I've seen players sweating profusely, moving their hands at over 400 actions per minute—on average!—and being physically exhausted after long matches. I could talk about all this, but I won't. There's no point.

What I will mention instead is how much pure enjoyment I've had over the years watching StarCraft played at the highest level. From the early days—long before YouTube—I would seek out pro StarCraft replays and listen to ".RWA" files (Replays with Audio) created by other fans like Manifesto7. I would read forum threads on Teamliquid.net, the largest English-language StarCraft fan site. Later I would watch YouTube videos of Korean matches with English commentary provided for free by fans such as NukeTheStars and RanshidDA. I would stay up until 3 AM to watch Jaedong play Flash in OSL and MSL finals, restreamed live from Korea by well-connected fans. It was just me and a few other weird people like me, but our numbers kept growing, and now it seems like it's reached the tipping point. A global, professional StarCraft scene isn't just a dream anymore. It's actually happening.

In Korea, the StarCraft 2 scene has become a place for many former StarCraft 1 players—both legends and near-unknowns—who wanted a place where they could find success, away from the iron grip of KeSPA. For the first time, the players were allowed to form an association similar to those in professional sports. For a brief time, it seemed like Korea would become the only place for professional StarCraft 2, just as it had for the original. Foreign players believed that the only way to make a living playing the game was to go to Korea, try out for the biggest tournament around, and compete against Koreans on their home turf. Some, like Idra and fan favorite Jonathan "Jinro" Walsh, had some success, making it to the Round of 8 and the semifinals respectively. Others, like TLO and Joseph "ret" de Kroon, didn't get very far and decided to return home.

But returning home didn't mean what it used to mean. Back in StarCraft 1's heyday, a few foreigners had made the pilgrimage to Korea to try and make it, but none had lasted very long. When they returned they were amateurs again, because there was no such thing as a career playing StarCraft outside of Korea.

This was about to change.

The future arrives

While Nick continues to cast the GSL from Korea, his brother Sean "Day[9]" Plott, the winner of the 2005 WCG USA final, has reached similar levels of fame with his Day[9] Daily shows on JustinTV. These shows help both new and experienced players understand the game better and even showcase hilariously and deliberately crazy games on his "Funday Monday" shows. Sean does the work of at least three people: producing his show, commentating dozens of international tournaments, and completing his Masters degree in Mathematics all at the same time. He's suddenly in great demand, because the international StarCraft 2 scene is starting to explode.

All kinds of announcements have happened just in the last few months. It started when Idra unexpectedly left Korea despite doing really well in the GSL. He was anticipating the announcement of the NASL, the first professional StarCraft league in North America. Then IGN announced that they were going to create their own StarCraft 2 league. Players from Team Fnatic revealed that they were creating the first Team House in North America, where their players could live together, practice the game, and talk StarCraft all day long, just like in Korea. A new StarCraft 2 league, the TeSL, has just been formed in Taiwan, with games broadcasted on live television and the tournament sponsored by 7-11.

The foreign scene has reached the point where a curious role reversal has happened: Korean professional players are entering foreign tournaments, and not necessarily expecting to win easily as they did with StarCraft 1 at WCG. The TSL3, an online tournament created by Teamliquid.net and sponsored by PokerStrategy.com, is being broadcasted in English by popular names like Blake "Chill" Muzar, Marcus "DjWHEAT" Graham, Sean "Day[9]" Plott, and Mike Husky. It is also being rebroadcasted in Korean by GOM TV. The time zone inequity now works the other way around: it is Korean fans who are getting up at 3 in the morning to watch a StarCraft tournament. "It's what you guys do for us, right?" said a representative from GOM TV when discussing the matter with a TeamLiquid administrator. "Maybe it's our turn."

It feels like the international professional StarCraft scene is happening organically, just like it did in Korea all those years ago. Local tournaments are being played every day for prize pools anywhere from $100 to $2,500, giving new players a chance to make a name for themselves before working their way up to larger tournaments, then challenge themselves to qualify for the big prizes. These big prizes are getting very large indeed: $34,500 in total for the TSL3, a rumored $150,000 for the IGN league, and a whopping $400,000 for NASL. Teams are forming. Sponsors are being found. Stories of future legends are being written. The only difference is that in Korea it happened in the local PC bangs, whereas now it's happening over the Internet so that the entire world can join in.

And join in they are. At the recent TSL3, viewership broke all previous records as over 50,000 people tuned in at once to watch the matches in the round of 32. They may not have all been in one stadium, but they were cheering just as hard as if they were.